The TTC is running a survey purportedly on service standards yet with nary a word on accessibility and skewed towards not building subways.

Service includes accessibility. Service includes how easy it is to use the system. Yet the survey doesn’t include one question related to cognitive, physical, or mental accessibility, other than pitting the number of route transfers against local bus options. That should not be an either/or option.

This survey is strictly geared to the young, healthy downtowner who already has subway access. It seems like it’s designed to justify not extending the Sheppard subway line to Scarborough Town Centre as originally designed, perhaps cancelling the Scarborough subway, and putting off the Downtown Relief Line.

Route transfers – the bane of my life – is the only remote nod to accessibility.

The best way to get attention is to stay focused on one or two things: route transfers and subway line names. So I urge you to take this survey and select the option “Reduced need to transfer from one vehicle to another” everywhere it’s mentioned as the Most Important. Or if it’s not in one of the options but “Routes that are more direct – on major roads only (faster travel and longer walks)” is, choose it as Most Important,for it’s code for subway line.

When both options are listed choose “Reduced need to transfer from one vehicle to another” as Most Important because it supports both extending the Sheppard and Bloor-Danforth lines as well as putting in more bus routes. In this case, you may also see an option for “Shorter walk to station/stops” or “Routes that are less direct – serve local neighbourhoods (slower travel and shorter walks).” These are code for Scarborough LRT over extending the Bloor-Danforth line; same with Sheppard Line. Choose those as Least Important when choosing “Reduced need to transfer” or “Routes that are more direct” as Most Important to emphasize you want the TTC to build the bloody subways already.

Fighting for more local bus routes will soon be easier with Uber coming into the market anyway, so we don’t need to agitate for those. But we do need to agitate for subways – a proper seamless transit backbone, not a hodge podge of subways and LRTs-trying-to-be-subways, requiring more energy from us to use and transfer from one to the other.*

You will then be asked either/or questions.

Continue to choose for fewer transfers, eg, choose “Service that allows me to make my trip on one vehicle, but involves more stops in local neighbourhoods resulting in a longer overall travel time.” This is obviously a bus that goes from A to B. The alternative “Service that provides a more direct service, but requires one or more transfers resulting in an shorter overall travel time” describes adding an LRT and transfer point at the end of the Bloor-Danforth and Sheppard Lines instead of extending the subways.

Choose “A longer walk to my stop if it means a shorter travel time to get to my destination.” This is code for subways because for some reason, the thinking is subways always require long walks to get to them. (In London, UK, that’s not the case because they’ve continued to build subways over the decades unlike us.)

“A shorter walk to my stop if it means a longer travel time to get to my destination” is code for LRTs (or buses instead of subways) because the expert opinion is walks to LRT stops are always shorter than subway stops. Um, no.

If you get an either/or question about buses, I chose “walks to/from bus stops with less direct and less frequent service through local neighbourhoods resulting in longer overall travel time” because buses specifically should be about local access and short walks. The alternative is about using buses instead of LRTs, streetcars, or subways. I don’t feel like being shoe-horned into buses instead of being able to use a streetcar or subway.

You will then be asked to rank your top 4 priorities. Put “The number of transfers you are required to make” at the top and “The time it takes to walk to/from your stop” at the bottom. Yes, the latter is important, but this is code for not building more subways. If people say they want shorter walks, the experts will say, see, people don’t want subways. They want LRTs. I put second “The time you wait for the bus/streetcar/subway” because frequent service on any kind of route is important plus it emphasizes the need for subways.

Speaking of subways, in the final screen asking for your opinion about the survey, in the box where you can type your thoughts, ask why no accessibility questions and to change the subway line names back to their original name and ditch the numbers. An example:

“Why were there no questions about accessibility? Why no questions about subway line names? Changing the names to numbers has made it harder to use. Please change subway line names back to their original names and ditch the numbers.”

Here’s the survey. Please take it and speak up for the only accessibility issue that they address – reducing transfers – and speak up for restoring subway line names. Thanks!

*I believe we need a coherent network of buses for local use, LRTs as feeder networks, and a robust subway network mirrored on the surface by buses that cover off the streets in between subway stops for local commuters. We do not have a robust subway network at all. London, UK is a great model. Using LRTs instead of subways ignores how geographically large Toronto is and the increasing volumes of people who need to use high-speed public transit.